From The Storm Front: The Day Of and The Day After

Around 1:30 Thursday afternoon, satisfied l had done all l could to protect my property, I decided to take a coma nap on an old sofa beneath the overhang of my enclosed patio. With my three dogs, of course who follow me like the pied piper. This way l figured l would hear the arrival of Matthew up front and personal which all the news crews and meteorologists who l think get off on this stuff said would storm in around 3.

Only it never really happened. All through the rest of the afternoon into the evening and then the night when Matthew was to be his most wicked, all we got was some wind and some rain but nothing to cause you to wait an hour in line for gas. In fact, by 5:30 the news crews, hunger for anything to save face after their mega hyping, were reporting on somebody’s uprooted tree in Palm Beach. OMG.

I spent the evening watching “Stormy Weather” (appropriate, right?), that I had recorded off TCM a few weeks ago. A classic forties flick, featuring an all-black cast and some of the leading talents of the day – like band leader Cab Calloway in his Zoot suit – or any day – like a very young Lena Horne. And some of the most jivin’ dancin’ ever put on film.

In the end Matthew would leave his deadly mischief to Floridians further up the coast. As this morning’s Sun Sentinel, our local paper, blared on its front page:

“MATT-WHEW! A slight wobble to the east, and we avoid the worst of the monster storm.”

So all that multi-billion dollar, cutting edge weather forecasting technology with planes dropping down into the storm to measure all sorts of shit, like whether Michael was cut or uncut, and in the end, as it often is, we were spared by a roll of the dice.

Or maybe with all the gay people now living down here in South Florida, the Gay God decided to be kind.

So l spent the better part of today undoing my storm prep and trying to get my house back to its loose and lazy self. But l have no regrets about taking the better safe than sorry strategy. As my orthopedic surgeon who l saw just a few days ago pointed out, if you have shutters and don’t use them and then have damage, your insurance company will politely reply screw you.

Remember all those microwave dinners smartass me made, figuring l could heat them up on my very clever portable butane stove? Well, me and my doggies will be having Chinese for the next three days for dinner and chicken pot pies for lunch.